13th-15th century AD. A bifacial bronze seal matrix with integral loop; a sword with crescent and star to each side with legend '+S' ROIERI DE WINTERBVRNEI' for 'Seal of Roger of Winterbourne' to the border, it looks as if the matrix-engraver has botched the inscription, cutting 'I' instead of 'G'; a crowned facing bust with legend 'PENSET DE MOI MA DVCE AMIE' for ' Think of me, my gentle love' to the border. 15.57 grams, 41mm (1 1/2"). Property of a Dorchester gentleman; found Dorset, UK. Malcolm Jones, Sheffield University, Dept. English Language & Linguistics, Senior Lecturer 1994-2009 and advisor to the British Museum and Portable Antiquities Scheme, says: 'Seals of this period often bear amatory messages in the language of courtly love, i.e. Anglo-French. One of the conventions of amour courtois is that both lovers are referred to as (literally) ‘friends’ – AMI (m) and AMIE (f"). It is a mistake to translate the word as ‘friend’, however -- in this context it means ‘lover, beloved’, and because we are in French we always know whether the lover in question is male or female from the spelling of the word (as above"). 'douce amie' as on the present seal is a well-attested collocation in the literature of courtly love, though curiously I cannot find evidence of the expression on any other seal or item of jewellery. On a linguistic note, from the evidence of seal-matrices such as this, Anglo-French could spell the final letters of the 2nd person plural imperative either -EZ (as predominantly in Continental French), or -ET, as here – which may perhaps be a diagnostically Anglo-French spelling. Penset de moi, ma douce amie - Note that the entire phrase is metrical and breaks as arranged round the oval perimeter of the matrix at the point where the caesura falls in the verse line. It sounds very like the title or opening of some courtly-love poem. In similar vein, the counter-seal of Patrick de Dunbar (1292), bears a shield suspended from a large tree between two smaller trees and is inscribed with what sounds like just such another courtly-love lyric: parmi cev havt bois condvray mamie [I shall lead my love among the tall woods]. The seal of an unknown signatory on the Ragman Roll yields another metrical inscription: tenet mon chapelete mamovr [Hold/take my chaplet, my love – i.e. the chaplet that I have made for you] – another well-represented iconographic motif of amour courtois. A finger-ring found recently in Dordrecht is inscribed enamer a douce vie [in loving he has a sweet life], the title of a ballade by Machaut, which can be dated a.1342. On a somewhat less courtly note – and note the class-sneer – is this couplet put into the mouth of a 13th century English lady’s brooch: ieo svi fermail pur garder sein/ ke nvs vilein ni mette mein [I am a brooch to guard the breast, so that no peasant may put his hand there]. It is in this context of courtly love that the present seal belongs – it is clearly a ‘personal seal’ in the true sense of the phrase, personal to Roger de Winterburne. His love-letters were ‘sealed with a kiss’.' Very fine condition. Extremely rare.